Basil Garlic Pesto!

I guess first of all I should let everyone know that my tomato plants survived just fine somehow. They're still ok (for now) despite my best efforts to snuff them from existence with abuse. I spent the last week hardening off the plants and later today I shall transfer one to its permanent home for the season, a 16-inch planter.

My basil was getting rather spindly looking and very tall so I made an executive decision to lop off the top. I have provided a before and after picture of my Basil plant. I must admit that I haven't been the most attentive in pruning it (and I feel bad about cutting my plants even though I'm growing them so I can eat them) so it didn't really bush out like it's supposed to. Maybe after lopping off the top it'll look better in a few days.

Anyhow, after cutting off the top, I attempted to make some pesto with the leaves that I had cut off. Lacking a mortar and pestle, food process or real blender, I resorted to chopping the leaves into little itty bits by hand. I threw the basil and some garlic chopped up the same way into a small bowl and mixed it all together with a bit of olive oil.

I think I ended up with a bit too much garlic and not quite enough basil since my garlic cloves were huge and my basil leaves were few, but hopefully it will all taste delicious.

Oh no, I might have murdered my tomato plants!

Today I attempted to re-pot my little tomato plants that you can see growing in this picture. I wanted to separate them so they'd have some more room before I move them to their final container (and when I popped 'em out the roots were starting to grow along the bottom of the container). However, in my attempt to separate the two of them I broke some of the roots.

I'm pretty sure that damaging the roots is a BAD THING, just hopefully not so bad that they die. I guess I'll find out over the next few days if they're going to survive or not. Wish them luck!